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Critically-Acclaimed Documentary on Russian Jews now Streaming Online

The critically acclaimed documentary trilogy “Russian Jews,” which intimately portrays the stories of Russian Jewry throughout the 20th century, is now available online on Youtube, courtesy of Genesis Philanthropy Group. Following a record-breaking theatrical release across Russia, a premiere at Israel’s Knesset, sold-out screenings across the United States, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Latvia and Georgia as well as Jewish film festivals in Moscow, Manchester, Atlanta and Australia, the series, which was created by famous Russian journalist/TV host Leonid Parfenov and produced by Genesis Philanthropy Group and Studio Namdeni, will now reach an even wider audience, providing much-needed context surrounding Russian-Jewish heritage and history.

The first film of the trilogy, “Russian Jews. Before the Revolution,” tells the story of the Jewish people across the Russian empire, their traditional way of life and how they strived to integrate into society at large in the face of adversity.

The second film, which highlights the time period of 1918-1948, captures a 30-year period of significant Jewish participation in a myriad of aspects of Soviet political and cultural life.

The third film begins with the KGB murder of Solomon Mikhoels, the leader of the Jewish Antifascist Committee. This third and final film tells the story of the resurgence of official state anti-Semitism after World War II, which included the gradual exclusion of Jews from Soviet political life, of continuing Jewish achievement despite the worsening conditions and of Jews who fought back as dissidents and Zionists. It shows how the revolutionary Jews who struggled to dismantle the totalitarian Soviet state, or leave it altogether, did so with the same tenacity with which their grandparents fought for the Tsar’s demise.